Langley City Council Set City’s Priorities for the Coming Year

There are two ways that municipal councils can set the direction of cities. One way is through motions proposed by induvial council members, and the other is through adopting strategic plans developed by all council members. In either case, the majority of council must be in favour for them to be in effect. The challenge with using motions is that they are ad-hoc and make it challenging for city staff to know the priority of a motion’s objectives compared to all the other objectives a city has. Most motions also require financial resources and staff time, which can undermine other objectives. For these reasons, strategic plans are the preferred way to move forward on the objectives of a council.

Langley City Council will be working on a five-year rolling strategic plan, but Council wanted to get to work quickly, so we adopted an interim plan for this year. The following are the objectives that Council asked Langley City staff to work on over the next year.

• Evaluate our financial planning process to ensure that it is not only robust, timely, consultative, and transparent but also takes into account current and long-term strategic priorities as well as capital and operating budget requirements identified under the Official Community Plan, asset management plans, and various long term infrastructure plans;
• Assess potential risks to the City services and partnerships due to political, economic, social, and environmental changes and uncertainty, thereby being able to develop mitigation plans to offset the risks;
• Review and update the current Tenant Relocation Policy to provide a suite of reasonable and appropriate housing relocation options that will protect the interest of tenants who will be relocated due to redevelopment;
• Support the Healthy and Resilient Community Dialogue Series that engages community leaders, provincial agencies, social service groups, community partners, residents and business owners, industry experts, and practitioners to examine homelessness, health, social issues, community safety, and well-being issues affecting our community. Through these conversations, we hope to identify best practices and develop a community action plan that addresses the issues and assists us with community planning decisions; and,
• Ensure we remain focused on completing previous strategic initiatives such as moving forward with Truth and Reconciliation with Indigenous Nations, updating our Zoning Bylaw to prepare for SkyTrain, creating a Sustainability Charter & Urban Forest Management Plan to tackle climate change and its impacts, and renewing the Fraser Highway One-Way to replace century-old infrastructure.